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Estate artica
"Estate artica", di cui si offre qui la prima traduzione italiana, fu scritto nel 1911 e pubblicato postumo solo nel 1980. È un romanzo che rappresenta uno dei momenti più intellettualmente raffinati della produzione narrativa di E.M. Forster sul tema del desiderio e del progresso. Nella stazione di Basilea, una folla di passeggeri tenta di salire su un treno diretto in Italia. Qui Martin Whitby cade e rischia di venire ucciso dal convoglio. A salvarlo c'è il repentino intervento di un giovane militare, Clesant March. Nonostante il profondo abisso che li divide, Martin prova per lui un sentimento di gratitudine e al tempo stesso un'immediata quanto indicibile attrazione. Se in un primo momento il rapporto tra i due appare solo circostanziale, più tardi assumerà una sfumatura di ambiguità. Rientrato in Inghilterra, Martin viene inaspettatamente contattato dal giovane March per un'urgente richiesta di soccorso, che da lì a breve si scopre essere l'inizio di una tragedia. Il romanzo costituisce un terreno di esplorazione inedito per Forster. In piena sintonia con il programma estetico modernista, "Estate artica" vuole infine mettere in discussione l'essenza stessa del codice cavalleresco, ancora in voga all'inizio del ventesimo secolo. Qui, con il lirismo che lo contraddistingue, l'autore dissemina tra le pagine messaggi inequivocabili e intense riflessioni sulle forti contraddizioni della sua epoca.
103 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
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260 people want to read
About the author
E.M. Forster
697 books4,284 followersEdward Morgan Forster, generally published as E.M. Forster, was an English novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society. His humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the epigraph to his 1910 novel Howards End: "Only connect".
He had five novels published in his lifetime, achieving his greatest success with A Passage to India (1924) which takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj.
Forster's views as a secular humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society. He is noted for his use of symbolism as a technique in his novels, and he has been criticised for his attachment to mysticism. His other works include Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908) and Maurice (1971), his posthumously published novel which tells of the coming of age of an explicitly gay male character.
He had five novels published in his lifetime, achieving his greatest success with A Passage to India (1924) which takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj.
Forster's views as a secular humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society. He is noted for his use of symbolism as a technique in his novels, and he has been criticised for his attachment to mysticism. His other works include Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908) and Maurice (1971), his posthumously published novel which tells of the coming of age of an explicitly gay male character.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 9, 2016
A Fragment from the Hand of a Master
Arctic Summer is the novel that E. M. Forster began in 1911, after Howards End, wrote eighty-some pages of, but never completed. The novella-length fragment has now been published in a beautiful edition by Hesperus, with a foreword by Anita Desai. Question: is it satisfying in itself, or will it just leave you frustrated? In short, is it worth reading? Answer: for lovers of Forster, absolutely yes; for others, probably not—unless they read some of his other books first.
It may be novella-length, but it lacks a novella's typical containment. It covers too much ground for one thing: it opens in the station at Basel, where one young man saves another from falling under a train, then moves in turn to Northern Italy, to an almost Brontean house in the North of England, to London, and finally to Cambridge. Its cast is shaping up to be a large one, contrasting two families with their different philosophies and beliefs. Martin Whitby, the man who almost falls, is an economist, married to the daughter of the Master of a Cambridge college, and father of a small son who calls him by his first name; he is a Home Counties intellectual and liberal. Clesant March, his rescuer, comes from a conservative Catholic family in the North of England; a junior army officer and an outdoorsman, he looks up to his elder brother Lance who is poised to inherit the property from a childless uncle, with the wonderful name of Arthur Vullamy. I suspect that Forster chose the family's rather exotic names, Catholic faith, and setting of a former monastery built in a river ravine, to emphasize their ancient chivalric values, if not pre-Reformation then at least pre-modern. There are important ideas at stake here, and for once they are not matters of class, but rather of belief. Fully developed, they could have led to a very interesting novel indeed.
But of course they are not fully developed. Martin and Clesant are drawn with care, though their extended families all need more. And even these two are not balanced in a way to make clear which is to be the true protagonist. I believe Forster intended Clesant for this role, yet he remains in the background for the first five chapters (the only parts that fully satisfied their author), which are dominated by the much more conventional character of Martin, who seems a slightly older version of Philip Herriton in Where Angels Fear to Tread. If Forster really were to develop Clesant March, he would need, I think, to establish his foundations earlier in the novel. But he is interesting; of that there is no doubt.
In terms of plot, the fragment holds together remarkably well. It begins with a narrow escape from death, features another close escape halfway through, and ends in a real death. All three are told almost casually, yet they have great potential significance. Martin's danger at Basel is never quite clear, yet it is this that links him irrevocably to Clesant. The narrow escape in the middle (a fire in a cinema show) may be a storm in a teapot, but it makes Martin face something about his own character that deeply disturbs him. And the offstage death at the end, though involving only a secondary character, is clearly of the kind to set the ensuing novel in motion, much as Lilia Herriton's offstage death did at almost the same point of Where Angels Fear to Tread. You read this book not merely for the sheer joy of Forster's writing, his sly humor, the radiant clarity of his language, but also for the implied invitation to complete the story for yourself. All the clues are there; perhaps the reader can complete in imagination what the author declined to set on paper?
I ordered this immediately after reading Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut, a biographical novel about Forster covering his life immediately before, during, and after the First World War. I happened also to read another book by Galgut and a lesser novel about the War in between; serendipity often throws up striking comparisons. I was always conscious that war was just around the corner, and that Martin's idealism and Clesant's chivalry would both be put to the test. Vullamy even says that the middle classes "need the discipline of war." Well, they got it. But the more significant perspective came from Galgut. The younger author borrowed Forster's title, but they mean different things. For Forster, it was an endless summer in which, in Martin's idealistic words, "there will be time to get something really important done." Galgut's emphasis was on Forster's emotional and sexual thaw, beginning to reconcile his physical needs to the romantic idealism of his nature, both still held in the glacial grip of his upbringing. Being more conscious than ever of how Forster wrote in code about things he could never express, I found myself looking from a different angle at the relationship between the two men, and at the events leading up to the final climax. No doubt Forster would have strongly rejected my questions, but they were fascinating just the same.
Arctic Summer is the novel that E. M. Forster began in 1911, after Howards End, wrote eighty-some pages of, but never completed. The novella-length fragment has now been published in a beautiful edition by Hesperus, with a foreword by Anita Desai. Question: is it satisfying in itself, or will it just leave you frustrated? In short, is it worth reading? Answer: for lovers of Forster, absolutely yes; for others, probably not—unless they read some of his other books first.
It may be novella-length, but it lacks a novella's typical containment. It covers too much ground for one thing: it opens in the station at Basel, where one young man saves another from falling under a train, then moves in turn to Northern Italy, to an almost Brontean house in the North of England, to London, and finally to Cambridge. Its cast is shaping up to be a large one, contrasting two families with their different philosophies and beliefs. Martin Whitby, the man who almost falls, is an economist, married to the daughter of the Master of a Cambridge college, and father of a small son who calls him by his first name; he is a Home Counties intellectual and liberal. Clesant March, his rescuer, comes from a conservative Catholic family in the North of England; a junior army officer and an outdoorsman, he looks up to his elder brother Lance who is poised to inherit the property from a childless uncle, with the wonderful name of Arthur Vullamy. I suspect that Forster chose the family's rather exotic names, Catholic faith, and setting of a former monastery built in a river ravine, to emphasize their ancient chivalric values, if not pre-Reformation then at least pre-modern. There are important ideas at stake here, and for once they are not matters of class, but rather of belief. Fully developed, they could have led to a very interesting novel indeed.
But of course they are not fully developed. Martin and Clesant are drawn with care, though their extended families all need more. And even these two are not balanced in a way to make clear which is to be the true protagonist. I believe Forster intended Clesant for this role, yet he remains in the background for the first five chapters (the only parts that fully satisfied their author), which are dominated by the much more conventional character of Martin, who seems a slightly older version of Philip Herriton in Where Angels Fear to Tread. If Forster really were to develop Clesant March, he would need, I think, to establish his foundations earlier in the novel. But he is interesting; of that there is no doubt.
In terms of plot, the fragment holds together remarkably well. It begins with a narrow escape from death, features another close escape halfway through, and ends in a real death. All three are told almost casually, yet they have great potential significance. Martin's danger at Basel is never quite clear, yet it is this that links him irrevocably to Clesant. The narrow escape in the middle (a fire in a cinema show) may be a storm in a teapot, but it makes Martin face something about his own character that deeply disturbs him. And the offstage death at the end, though involving only a secondary character, is clearly of the kind to set the ensuing novel in motion, much as Lilia Herriton's offstage death did at almost the same point of Where Angels Fear to Tread. You read this book not merely for the sheer joy of Forster's writing, his sly humor, the radiant clarity of his language, but also for the implied invitation to complete the story for yourself. All the clues are there; perhaps the reader can complete in imagination what the author declined to set on paper?
I ordered this immediately after reading Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut, a biographical novel about Forster covering his life immediately before, during, and after the First World War. I happened also to read another book by Galgut and a lesser novel about the War in between; serendipity often throws up striking comparisons. I was always conscious that war was just around the corner, and that Martin's idealism and Clesant's chivalry would both be put to the test. Vullamy even says that the middle classes "need the discipline of war." Well, they got it. But the more significant perspective came from Galgut. The younger author borrowed Forster's title, but they mean different things. For Forster, it was an endless summer in which, in Martin's idealistic words, "there will be time to get something really important done." Galgut's emphasis was on Forster's emotional and sexual thaw, beginning to reconcile his physical needs to the romantic idealism of his nature, both still held in the glacial grip of his upbringing. Being more conscious than ever of how Forster wrote in code about things he could never express, I found myself looking from a different angle at the relationship between the two men, and at the events leading up to the final climax. No doubt Forster would have strongly rejected my questions, but they were fascinating just the same.
September 30, 2014
Although it contains individual scenes that are quite nice, there IS a reason Forster abandoned this novel and never finished it. Interesting mainly for scholars and for its historical value. I mainly read it to compliment Galgut's novel of the same name that I just had finished.
August 16, 2012
Set in Italy and England, this is Forster's fragment of a novel, begun in 1911, fiddled with again in the early 1950s before finally being abandoned. In it he attempts to contrast two types of men: the chivalrous, bold, military man, embodied by brothers Clesant and Lance March, and the more moderate and modern man, ambivalent rather than bold, subject to moments of mild cowardice, embodied by Martin Whitby. (Whitby contained elements of Forster and his friends Roger Fry and Rupert Brooke.)
Clesant March saves Martin Whitby by pulling him from underneath a train, where he has slipped while embarking for an Italian vacation with his wife and mother-in-law. March is headed for Italy himself, and he can't seem to shake Whitby, who, grateful for having his life saved, is omnipresent with offers of help. March does finally need Whitby's help at the very end of the 84 page fragment.
Unfortunately, there's nothing really pleasing here. Forster's writing seems more stilted than usual, phrases and idioms are more dated (several times I had no idea WTF people were talking about), and no character is actually sympathetic.
Clesant March saves Martin Whitby by pulling him from underneath a train, where he has slipped while embarking for an Italian vacation with his wife and mother-in-law. March is headed for Italy himself, and he can't seem to shake Whitby, who, grateful for having his life saved, is omnipresent with offers of help. March does finally need Whitby's help at the very end of the 84 page fragment.
Unfortunately, there's nothing really pleasing here. Forster's writing seems more stilted than usual, phrases and idioms are more dated (several times I had no idea WTF people were talking about), and no character is actually sympathetic.
February 4, 2025
This is the first nine chapters of a novel which Forster started writing in 1910 but continue. It is an exploration of the clash between two opposing worlds, the impulsive bravery of the traditional hero seen alongside the enduring tolerance of a more usual person, calling into question the nature of the gentlemanly code.
When travelling in Switzerland, Martin Whitby slips and falls under a train, and is rescued by the speedy action of a young soldier, who disappears soon after. The following day Whitby seeks him out to thank him. It comes to pass that the men differ starkly in their views of society and politics. When Martin returns to England, by chance, he is called upon urgently, to assist a solidier.
It has frustratingly remained unfinished, perhaps due to family copyright restrictions, or because other writers do not see the value in it.
What there is of it, is typical Forster writing, and that in itself make it a worthwhile experience.
When travelling in Switzerland, Martin Whitby slips and falls under a train, and is rescued by the speedy action of a young soldier, who disappears soon after. The following day Whitby seeks him out to thank him. It comes to pass that the men differ starkly in their views of society and politics. When Martin returns to England, by chance, he is called upon urgently, to assist a solidier.
It has frustratingly remained unfinished, perhaps due to family copyright restrictions, or because other writers do not see the value in it.
What there is of it, is typical Forster writing, and that in itself make it a worthwhile experience.
Read
March 19, 2025Not sure what it was about but Forster's writing is so beautiful, I'd read his shopping list
Read
July 14, 2020The Whitbys are a married couple version of the Schlegel sisters, and their big mistake is to assume that Clesant March, the soldier who saves Martin Whitby from falling under a train, is their Leonard Bast, there to be educated and patronised, whereas he’s more of a Henry Wilcox, a man of little imagination. It always surprises me that the Merchant Ivory adaptations of Forester’s novels were so successful - they look sumptuous but E.M.’s oeuvre is the novel of ideas*, the philosophical tome, the continuation of the Cambridge Apostles in novel format. His ideas still hold water now: the eternal struggle between the aesthete who loves art, literature, ideas, and is politically progressive and the practical man who is interested in family, nationhood, Empire, God, is, in the 21st century, characterised as Met Lib Elite vs narrow minded Provincials and before that, it was the Grim Up North London chattering classes vs the Little Englanders and before that Liberals vs Conservatives and even before that, Whigs and Tories.
Indeed, there’s a rant from Lady Borlase, Martin’s mother in law, at the beginning of the book as she decries the Swiss Army for being "essentially pacifist" which sounds like a version of any op-ed from the Daily Mail about perceived national decline:
“No doubt all European will be like them in the long run, yes and England too. We shall all be set to do dumbbells half an hour every morning with an army of officials to watch us and a central bureau for appeals”.
Foster couldn't think of a conclusion to the book. I have a couple of ideas. After the death of his brother, Clesant moves in with the Whitbys and falls for Dorothea. They become engaged. He seems to be slowly opening his mind to new ideas, but then the war comes and he immediately signs up. A gap opens up between him and the Whitbys as Martin struggles with his conscience as to whether to fight for England and Empire or become a conscientious objector. He chooses the latter and is imprisoned; this leads to Clesant despising him and breaking with the family. Clesant is then killed at Passchendaele (I didn't say it was a happy ending).
* “To stop in the country and look picturesque – it isn't enough.”
Indeed, there’s a rant from Lady Borlase, Martin’s mother in law, at the beginning of the book as she decries the Swiss Army for being "essentially pacifist" which sounds like a version of any op-ed from the Daily Mail about perceived national decline:
“No doubt all European will be like them in the long run, yes and England too. We shall all be set to do dumbbells half an hour every morning with an army of officials to watch us and a central bureau for appeals”.
Foster couldn't think of a conclusion to the book. I have a couple of ideas. After the death of his brother, Clesant moves in with the Whitbys and falls for Dorothea. They become engaged. He seems to be slowly opening his mind to new ideas, but then the war comes and he immediately signs up. A gap opens up between him and the Whitbys as Martin struggles with his conscience as to whether to fight for England and Empire or become a conscientious objector. He chooses the latter and is imprisoned; this leads to Clesant despising him and breaking with the family. Clesant is then killed at Passchendaele (I didn't say it was a happy ending).
* “To stop in the country and look picturesque – it isn't enough.”
October 10, 2024
De eerste hoofdstukken zijn zo vertrouwd, zo Forsteriaans, zo moeiteloos helder dat je spijt hebt dat er geen volledig boek is, maar als je dan de laatste hoofdstukken leest, met de jongen die nog een hele weg af te leggen heeft, de gevoeligheden die niet meer van deze tijd zijn, maar ook niet meer van de generatie na de eerste Wereldoorlog (ironisch dat de oom hoopt op een grote oorlog, een Armageddon om de linkse besluitelozen duidelijk te maken dat Engels machismo en rechtsdenkend handelen het enige redmiddel zijn voor the Empire) dan snap je waarom hij moest stoppen. Niet alleen werd het een herhaling van Howard’s End, met wat Longest Journey en een snuifje Maurice erin geroerd, het hele thema was gedateerd. Nu valt het niet op dat Forster altijd een groots gebaar als noodzakelijke katalysator heeft in zijn boeken (een kind dat sterft, een boekenkast die iemand verplettert, een al dan niet verkrachting in een grot) maar met die zelfmoord zou dat te obvious worden.
Er staat een passage in die ik niet kan plaatsen, behalve als ik het met queer ogen lees:
"Of course he had his difficulties and temptations; for instance he nearly became a bad citizen. When beauty flowered, the wonder of life dazzled him that he saw nothing else, and the world appeared as a gymnasium in which fine fellows develop their muscles and sing about from rope to rope."
Waar heeft hij het over? Over het feit dat Martin alleen het oppervlak ziet en niet wat er achter ligt? Of over een verlangen naar mannen?
"Passion passed in time. For the Whitby’s, as for all married people, the sea began to ebb after a few months, and they had to face whatever it uncovered. Now came the critical moment of their career. With what joy did they see the comradeship of the past re-emerging, but softened by a tenderness that had not been in the past. They had produced wedded love. They had solved one modern problem, and if they became a little intolerant to those who had not solved it, if they sometimes forgot that money and outside interests, and a healthy child, had helped them, nevertheless they were receiving the reward of merit; the lustful and the insincere will never be rewarded."
Er staat een passage in die ik niet kan plaatsen, behalve als ik het met queer ogen lees:
"Of course he had his difficulties and temptations; for instance he nearly became a bad citizen. When beauty flowered, the wonder of life dazzled him that he saw nothing else, and the world appeared as a gymnasium in which fine fellows develop their muscles and sing about from rope to rope."
Waar heeft hij het over? Over het feit dat Martin alleen het oppervlak ziet en niet wat er achter ligt? Of over een verlangen naar mannen?
"Passion passed in time. For the Whitby’s, as for all married people, the sea began to ebb after a few months, and they had to face whatever it uncovered. Now came the critical moment of their career. With what joy did they see the comradeship of the past re-emerging, but softened by a tenderness that had not been in the past. They had produced wedded love. They had solved one modern problem, and if they became a little intolerant to those who had not solved it, if they sometimes forgot that money and outside interests, and a healthy child, had helped them, nevertheless they were receiving the reward of merit; the lustful and the insincere will never be rewarded."
January 14, 2024
It's hard to judge an unfinished novel, but given what this is, at parts, it did seem like an unfinished rough first or second draft. (Although this edition is obviously edited professionally for spelling and grammar, there are other reasons it seems like that.)
There are some weird-sounding phrases, particularly one near the beginning I won't recount fully involving Death and feet (I make it sound more intriguing than it is, but it probably isn't, I just don't care to write about it) I don't know if it was the intention but one of the characters or the narrator came off a bit sexist at a few points, and there is a part briefly describing hunting for sport that seems to have the intention to show it in a positive light that I didn't feel good about reading, even if the practice was more acceptable at the time.
There is potential here, and some good writing amongst it, but I think it will mostly benefit the completionists of the author. Also maybe a helpful exercise in analysing texts for creative writers in what does and doesn't work maybe, and evidence that even great writers like E.M Forster have early drafts, some they had chosen to abandon.
There are some weird-sounding phrases, particularly one near the beginning I won't recount fully involving Death and feet (I make it sound more intriguing than it is, but it probably isn't, I just don't care to write about it) I don't know if it was the intention but one of the characters or the narrator came off a bit sexist at a few points, and there is a part briefly describing hunting for sport that seems to have the intention to show it in a positive light that I didn't feel good about reading, even if the practice was more acceptable at the time.
There is potential here, and some good writing amongst it, but I think it will mostly benefit the completionists of the author. Also maybe a helpful exercise in analysing texts for creative writers in what does and doesn't work maybe, and evidence that even great writers like E.M Forster have early drafts, some they had chosen to abandon.
November 3, 2024
This unfinished/abandoned novel written in 1911 was based on Forster's "idea for a book on chivalry". It explores the clash between opposing worlds - the instinctive bravery of the traditional hero (the March brothers) and the modern man who is rational but slower to act (Martin Whitby). The action is packed into short chapters and rushed to a passionate climax with no proper conclusion.
Though incomplete, Arctic Summer still makes for an engaging read for this Forster fan, for the ideas, tensions and implications of such a clash. Forster later expanded fully on the idea of a heroic act in A Passage to India (1924)
Though incomplete, Arctic Summer still makes for an engaging read for this Forster fan, for the ideas, tensions and implications of such a clash. Forster later expanded fully on the idea of a heroic act in A Passage to India (1924)
September 11, 2024
An unfinished novel has somehow managed to capture the complexity of courage, express how work comes with you in your mind on holiday, and present several wonderful character sketches. I wish he had sharpened the last chapter - it could have been a novella ending shortly after the final event, however the sense of being rushed in the final section was overwhelming. So nearly a brilliant little book.
September 12, 2024
Romanzo “non pubblicato” della sua produzione, Estate Artica pur secondo me risentendo della mancanza di una stesura finale dell’autore, porta con sé molti temi cari a Forster e come sempre è apprezzabile per la sua modernità. Poi la prosa è splendida. E le pagine ambientate a Milano degnissime di nota.
December 6, 2020
Bei personaggi e ottimi spunti per la trama (cioè a dire passaggi propriamente geniali), peccato che per i ben noti motivi Morgan non sia riuscito a mettere il tutto insieme portando a felice compimento il romanzo.
June 30, 2017
It was wonderful to be reading Forster again, after having thought I had read all of his extant fiction. But this is just a fragment, and in the end I can see why he didn't finish it.
July 3, 2012
It certainly is not Forster's best. Uncertain characters, dispersion oc action... What happened? The final impression is that this is an unfinished novel.
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